


all the ground beneath you

by usingmyoxygen (keithsforeheadtattoo)



Category: Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-28
Updated: 2010-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-14 19:16:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keithsforeheadtattoo/pseuds/usingmyoxygen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>when you die it is partly for france and partly because you can no longer hold yourself together.</i>
</p><p>mostly-unrequited enjolras/marius.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the ground beneath you

he never says i love you. he says _i love listening to you breathe_ and _i love having you around_ and even _i love every angling curve of you_ but he never loves you as a sum of parts. he loves whatever disjointed frankenstein monster he's made of you -- your hips and your back and your eyes and skin and bones and cries of his name but never you.

it doesn't bother you until he meets her and is suddenly all poetry. within minutes he needs her all the time, speaks of her constantly, welcomes death at the thought of losing _her_. not her voice. not her hair. not her smile. she becomes a whole in his eyes, save for the parts of her that intertwine to parts of him because he is of course always saying they're inseparable.

you fall apart. you imagine yourself finally becoming the pieces he's always seen you as.

when you die it is partly for france and partly because you can no longer hold yourself together. death doesn't feel much of a leap. you'd been gone since the moment you first realized not a single part of him was yours anymore.

you imagine yourself in the turgid way the other students talk of martyrdom. your blood can water the meadows, then, and your heart serve the people and your back carry the weight of their burdens and your arms strike out against the bourgeoisie.

when you die you think of this, but only briefly, because this is not how you remember your arms.

**Author's Note:**

> [title's from "high & dry" by radiohead.]
> 
> first off: this is based on the musical adaptation of les mis, not the hugo novel. :/ i know, i know, i'll be burned at the stake...
> 
> secondly: i'm also aware of the likelihood of being burned at the stake for portraying enjolras as anything but chaste and militant and everything he is during wartime. but uh. i'm gonna plead the musical-gives-a-slightly-looser-character-interpretation excuse? with a side of well-maybe-that's-a-purposely-harsh-exterior...? blargh, i dunno. i was playing around with some weirder characterization choices, sue me... (;


End file.
